Following God's call to the world and back

From the Heart

I wrote this a couple years ago and finally feel ready to post it. It’s amazing how I’ll write down something I feel the Lord is showing me and then forget about it until years later when I find it and realize what amazing things God spoke to me…and it challenges me to remember what God has said and hold onto His promises, because what He has said is true and will happen (maybe you needed to read that, it’s truth for you) and He’s calling us to remember His promises, to remember WHO He IS and what He has promised, and to focus our eyes on Him and follow His lead always, because He knows best.

God likes to give me pictures and visions of weddings, Him with His Bride, and it’s really beautiful. It’s just one of the ways He speaks to me and definitely overwhelming since I’m not married yet, but I love feeling even an ounce of the deep love He has for His people – YOU. Just in case you didn’t know, He really, really loves you.

This is what I wrote down, and I think this is meant to be read in the first person, as if it were you.

I see Jesus. He’s standing in front of me. His face shines love for me. He takes my hands. He places His hand on my cheek.

I realize that He is calming me. Turning my gaze from all other things onto Him and Him alone. We stand atop a big hill. He puts His hand to my cheek and His face lights up into a huge smile as He tenderly leans close to me & says, “Look into My eyes, Beloved.”

He urges me to turn to Him. To focus. So I do. I turn my eyes from the surrounding wilderness and look into His beautiful eyes. They are surreal to look at. Mesmerizing. I am instantly drawn in and the connection with Him is immediate. I am His. He is mine. We are one.

My panic and discontent and bewilderment is gone, replaced by deep peace and definite purpose. We are connected. Our sight is intertwined in the depths of His eyes. My little worries have faded, replaced by His love and assurance of a good, perfect future in Him. I ride along on His wave and feel joy again.

Excitement, even, which is something I haven’t felt in a while. No matter how long it takes, I am completely aware of His overarching plan & know with absolute certainty that His purposes for my life will ultimately prevail. They will happen the way they’re supposed to, not how I see it, but even better.

And then I realize His insatiable passion for His people. His bride, and specifically those who still don’t know Him. I follow His gaze into the depths and see Him eyeing the world. I see it ringed in gold. Beautiful. I see the world shouting its praise to its Maker. Like fireworks streaming into the sky are the praises of the nations to their King. And I feel His joy and pleasure with His creation and His bride singing songs of love and adoration to Him.

But then I feel His pain. I wonder what could be wrong, until I catch a glimpse of the dark spots, huge and vast, that have spread through many sections of the world. The places that aren’t worshiping. Where no joy and light abound. Where His bride is so completely unaware that her Groom looks at her from afar, sees her, knows her, loves her, and longs for her with groans that cannot be expressed in words…with the deepest longing imaginable, and even then, so desperately beyond what could ever be explained in human terms.

The dark areas covered much of Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa and Europe, with a growing spot in the east and western edges of America.

Yet the light was spreading and the darkness could not prevail against it.

I saw His promise and purpose and delight as the golden light from the places of praise spread slowing outward…capturing the darkness and holding it hostage. The darkness slowly imploded from within.

Certain dark spots were overcome by a light that would begin to shine as just one mere dot in the middle, then grew and grew until it could not be stopped. And oh how the darkness tried. There were times when the darkness pushed back and seemed to capsize the light. Yet the golden light wavered but never fell back, pushing back the darkness with an even stronger, more brilliant force that went farther as a result to reach into more darkness than if it had not been pressed back at all.

The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out. – John 1:5 (MSG)

I could clearly see His plan for the nations, and could feel Jesus longing deeply for His bride to come to Him. And for His bride to go and get His bride. Like He was saying, “Abide with Me, and let’s go get My Bride!”

How things work out in my life suddenly seem insignificant compared to His master plan. I know my life will be filled with God’s promise, goodness, favor, perfect plan, but He’s asking me to step out and be a part of HIS plan. He is asking all of us in love, to go. He deeply desires for you and me to be a part of it. Just as a husband and wife long to share everything with each other and become one, so Jesus longs to share everything with me, with you, His glorious, beautiful, dazzling, precious bride, and become united with us as one. Oh He cannot wait for that day!

I realized that it all started when I looked into His eyes. He was already right there. But I had to follow His urging to look into His eyes and truly see. To let go of myself and my control, of which I never truly had in the first place, and surrender my way to Him by following His commands in even the simplest way.

A leaf
It buds and flourishes
Grows, brightens
Beautiful green as it
works with the tree,
entrenched, centered,
made strong by stem,
branch, trunk & roots
Though the wind blows,
leaf flutters & waves, yet
remains strong
creating oxygen & giving life
as it was created to do
Then, slowly, over time
changes color, comes intoits own, shines its fall hue
with unashamed, glorious, confidentbrightness
an example, a legacy, imprinted
on skies, glistening in the
rain – made perfect by its Creator
until one day, again slowly,
stem weakens, leaf again flutters
breaks loose, falls to the ground,
where it lays as a colorful testament to
all God has done,
giving space for those
coming behind,
enriching, fertilizing,
making ready the soil forthe most brilliant of harvests.